What Is Clean Eating + 5 Simple Guidelines

When I initially decided to stop dieting, eat better and focus on nourishment, I used clean eating as my guide (that’s where the name Clean & Delicious came from) and I’ve since had a lot of people ask me what exactly does it mean to eat clean.

Let me start by saying, ‘eating clean’ means different things to different people so this is simply my definition of eating clean:

Eating real whole, unprocessed foods as close to their natural state as possible, most of the time.

So eating vegetables, fruits, high quality carbs like sweet potatoes and grains, good quality protein sources, and healthy fats like nuts and avocados.

One of the most important things to realize is that clean eating is a life style and not a fad diet.

It’s step by step improving the quality of the foods that you’re eating so that you can be in charge of your energy and your health and not fall victim to the cravings and mood swings that often come with eating highly processed, nutrient-void foods that leave us feeling hungry and out of control.

And know, that this doesn’t have to look any one way.

You can eat clean and be a vegetarian. You can eat clean and be a vegan. You can eat clean and be a weight lifter, a meat eater, a yogi. You can eat two meals a day or six meals a day (I think you get where I’m going with this).

Ultimately, you have to commit to finding what works for YOU but the common thread, the tie-through is that you are eating real whole, unprocessed foods as close to their natural state as possible, most of the time and that you are ENJOYING the foods that you are eating.

Here are 5 easy guidelines that helped me when I first transitioned to eating clean:

1. COOK

Cooking is the easiest way to stay in control of your ingredients because you always know what you’re working with. And that doesn’t mean you never eat out or order in, you just try to cook more then you don’t, which is technically just 51% of the time.

2. READ YOUR LABELS

Learning to read your labels is a good way to begin to understand what you are eating. General rule of thumb; try to stick to foods that have 5 ingredients or less and that have ingredients that you can recognize and pronounce.

3. AVOID HIGHLY PROCESSED FOODS

Not all processed foods are a problem. Oatmeal is slightly processed, quinoa is lightly processed, same with brown rice and frozen veggies. These aren’t the processed foods I am referring to.

We want to avoid foods that are highly processed meaning they have gone through many processing steps to create the final product. These are foods the are made in factories vs. gardens and farms.

Think of it like this, the more a food is processed outside of our bodies the less nutritious it will be for our bodies. The goal is to have our bodies do as much of the work to process the food as possible (not the factories). A great indicator of highly processed foods are the ingredient lists. If you have a food with a long ingredient list, chances are it is a highly processed food.

One of the main issues with highly process foods is that they contain an overload of fats, salts and sugars which will skew your tastebuds because the unnatural, excess of flavors literally bombard the palate and you will lose the ability to taste and appreciate the natural flavors of real whole food.

This, my friends, is why healthy eating can get a bad rap. If you are accustomed to eating highly processed foods, real whole foods won’t taste good to you which is why we want to baby step our way out of those habits.

4. AVOID ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS AND COLORS

Simply put, artificial flavors and colors are not food, they are food like products that are designed to bypass the logical part of your brain and trigger the pleasure points so that you find yourself wanting more and more.

They offer absolutely no nourishment and because they are not real food, your body doesn’t know what to so with them. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that artificial sugars actually trigger the body to crave more sugar.

5. MACRO NUTRIENT BALANCE

Be aware of your carbohydrate, protein, and fat balance. This does not mean you have to count and track your macro-nutrients all day long, but you do want to be sure you are having a good balance of proteins, carbs and healthy fats.

Most people I have worked with, tend to get in too many processed carbohydrates and not enough healthy fats. It’s something to keep in mind for yourself.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to find foods you really like and enjoy eating.

Ultimately, eating clean is a lifestyle and for us to make anything a way of life it has to be sustainable which means you must enjoy it.

Trying to willpower your way to healthier eating will never work and is simply not sustainable. This is why most extreme diets fail, because we can only stay on them for so long before we find ourselves shoulder to shoulder with a pint of ice-cream.

So play, experiment, give yourself space and time to find food that work for you and that you truly enjoy eating, so you can have the health and energy that you crave and deserve!

About Dani

Dani Spies is the founder and host of Clean & Delicious; a weekly cooking show on YouTube and a healthy eating blog that celebrates real, whole foods! She takes a holistic approach to health and wellness and is loved for her approachable, down to earth style both in and out of the kitchen.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Hi Dani my name is Evelyn and I’m following your channel, I have a question about the last video that you posted on yutube. Have can I known how much macronutrient, carbohydrates and fat I need to consume each day?. Thank you so much for have a great channel you really inspired me to have a healthy lifestyle.

Dani, I am so grateful for your youtube, FB and webite Cleananddelicious.com I have learned so much from it and have tried quit a few of your recipes. I am always looking for a new one so that I can try. My family loves the one chicken and veggie pan, My quinoa recipes thanks to you and the desserts. I have decided to go clean eating as of January of this year it has changed my life I thought i was going through menopause and old age way too soon for being 43, once I started to do the clean eating life style I lost 20 lbs and my husband 13lbs. I found your website through my search for recipes, You are my go to person for meals and I share them with friends and family, I am a happier healthier person and you have something to do with that. Thank you

Hi, Dani! I absolutely love Clean & Delicious! You make everything so easy to understand. I discovered your channel when I was looking for infused water recipes on Youtube and I’m so glad I found you! I have a severe case of Rheumatoid Arthritis and I find that clean eating works so much better than all the prescription drugs. Keep on producing great content! You’re going to help a lot of people feel better. 🙂

I am a newbie to your amazing Youtube channel and now your website. I really have never followed anyone on Youtube or left a comment. However you are really something special I know that God directed me to your videos and of course now all things Dani and all things Clean & Delicious. I really love and appreciate your honesty, and how you keep it simple for Clean Eating and Clean Shopping DUMMIES like me :-). I never know what to buy at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Well thanks to you I do not have that problem anymore. I am starting your series on how to stock your fridge, and pantry from scratch. I am going into 2018 with you as my coach and I know my health will be so much better and I will be ready to embrace Grandparent hood with plenty of energy and good health. Thank you not just for what you do but more for how you do it and for being real and honest. That is why I connected with you. My bull crap meter works well and you my dear are the REAL DEAL!!!

Hi Dani…what you said about it being a lifestyle change you enjoy is so true! A few years ago my husband and I started eating cleaner (health effects were amazing after just 6 months) and weaned ourselves off of fast food and processed food. Then a bunch of crappy life stuff hit all at once, and we slipped back into bad habits. Now we are ready to get back to eating clean but man, I’m not going to deny how hard it is to retrain the taste buds. We had gotten to a point where fast food and processed food tasted gross, but like I said bad habits and emotional eating took over and now our sense of taste has been overstimulated. I am really loving your channel and blog as it reminds me why we enjoyed changing to a healthier lifestyle in the first place.

I stopped eating refined sugar in 1952 at 10 (my father made me). I grew up on illegal raw dairy products (raw milk purchased from the cow owner). In 1955 I stopped eating refined foods. But my exception was chocolate. I have been a chocoholic my whole life. Lately, I found out my chocolate bars (T.J.’s) contained heavy metals, so just choosing unrefined sugar sweeteners was not enough. So I buy raw organic cacao powder (Amazon). It’s not bitter. It might be the roasting (too much?) that burns the oils, just as in coffee, which I have to buy raw and roast.

When you put chocolate chips in your recipes I substitute my powder. I have not found an unrefined chocolate bar or chips. Have you?

I am new to clean eating and I just wanted to thank you for sharing your recipes. I feel fortunate to have bumped into your youtube video. Also, thank you for taking the time to educate us on clean eating. I have cooked some of your recipes and they are delicious.